It matters what label you’re on, and whether you’re a priority. And being on RCA left the Silencers not a priority and with no career, as the label was in transition. But the only records I played more in the nineties were those of Shawn Colvin, although the sound is nothing similar.

ANSWER ME

The opening track on the second album, “A Blues For Buddha,” I heard this on a cassette deck in the parking lot of the Le Parc Hotel and was immediately swayed.

It was passionate radio promotion man Kevin Sutter who implored me to give it a chance, and I was immediately blown away, I wanted a CD, just to hear this mellifluous number once again.

It starts quietly and builds, like a band walking over a hill through the mist into your burg.

Why is it the music I like most has acoustic elements, why am I a sucker for a good voice, why is it the music that moves me most is never a classic Top Forty hit but stuff like “Answer Me,” with its violin and infectious groove… If this is your wheelhouse it will BLOW YOUR MIND!

PAINTED MOON

Actually, the band got airplay on this, from their 1987 debut, “A Letter From St. Paul.”

This is hooky, and you can see why radio went on it, but it never broke through, but that does not mean it’s not great.

A LETTER FROM ST. PAUL

The title track. Essentially an instrumental, with a spoken interlude…that letter.

This will set your mind free and make you think about the possibilities.

I love it!

BLUE DESIRE

Even more, I like this. Wasn’t always so, but you know how you end up knowing the cut after your favorite because the album slips into it… “Blue Desire” comes after “A Letter From St. Paul.”

It’s the vocal… As if you stumbled into an alley and the song is being sung in confidence, just to you, whew!

If you check this out you won’t believe it, that something this good is buried on Spotify, awaiting your click.

I OUGHT TO KNOW

What a great expression!

Getting into the second album first, it was always my favorite, but the cognoscenti were correct, the debut is better. This comes before “A Letter From St. Paul” and “Blue Desire” on side two, and doesn’t hook you quite immediately, but when you hear the chorus…

POSSESSED

Sounds like it, like the band was so!

This album, the debut, “A Letter From St. Paul,” sat in the CD changer in the trunk of my car for YEARS!

In a perfect world, my world, the Silencers would be known by everybody.

THE REAL MCCOY

Now back to the second, 1988′s “A Blues For Buddha.”

They don’t make music like this anymore, jaunty, that you can’t help but move your body to.

SKIN GAMES

Positively incredible. The intro is so ethereal. And then they hit the substance, the groove. It’s a trip into interstellar space equivalent to the one the Moody Blues took us on, but it sounds nothing like the work of that hit group.

“A Blues For Buddha” was produced by Flood, alas, it had even less impact than the debut.

BULLETPROOF HEART

And then the band splintered and changed, that’s what happens when you don’t get the respect and success you deserve, and what followed wasn’t as good, but…

This was a cover of Jimme O’Neill’s work with his first band, Fingerprintz, on Virgin, which had even less success than the Silencers.

“Dance To The Holy Man,” the 1991 album it’s from, is not on Spotify, so I’m utilizing the version from the Silencers’ live album “A Night Of Electric Silence.”

ONE INCH OF HEAVEN

Also in its live iteration.

I CAN FEEL IT

From the fourth album, 1993′s “Seconds Of Pleasure.”

Once again, from the live album, since the studio LP is not on Spotify, and “Seconds Of Pleasure” is spotty, but this cut is as good as the stuff from the first and second albums.

So there you have it. If you dive in and get it, know that the initial two albums have not a clunker between them.

But other than in France, the band never happened.

So Jimme O’Neill moved there.

But Elton John is not tracking him down to do duets, he’s just fading into the distance, but in my world, he and his band are SUPERSTARS!

Please use the comments to demonstrate your own ignorance, unfamiliarity with empirical data and lack of respect for scientific knowledge. Be sure to create straw men and argue against things I have neither said nor implied. If you could repeat previously discredited memes or steer the conversation into irrelevant, off topic discussions, it would be appreciated. Lastly, kindly forgo all civility in your discourse . . . you are, after all, anonymous.

One Response to “Silencers: A Primer”

Ah yes, The Silencers from the 80′s. If they only had one breakout hit, I think that would have carried a few more songs into the top 100. Maybe they just didn’t have their own unique enough sound??? I don’t know, I hear a little Crowded House – Split Enz – Squeeze at the slow to mid-tempo songs, then I pick up XTC, Devo influences on the more energetic songs. Maybe a band that sounds like a lot of other bands is not needed. But today, I enjoy the songs (Thank you Barry!), and will add some of these to my Spotify 80′s playlist.

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About Barry Ritholtz

Ritholtz has been observing capital markets with a critical eye for 20 years. With a background in math & sciences and a law school degree, he is not your typical Wall St. persona. He left Law for Finance, working as a trader, researcher and strategist before graduating to asset managementRead More...

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